Domingo Franco

Faceless martyrs have long fascinated me. While tapping out this article, I’m looking at an old photo showing thirteen valiant men, standing in a row about eight feet apart from each other, facing the firing squad. That was the “killing fields” of Bagumbayan in the early morning of January 11, 1897. On that day, El Supremo of the revived La Liga Filipina, and twelve of his compatriots sprawled on the ground, “kissing the soil of their beloved country” for the last time.

It is said that a nation without heroes is a sad nation. True, because without heroes there can be no inspired leadership among our people and that makes our nation even sadder. But what difference does it make if we, as a people, limit ourselves with historical bywords like Rizal, Bonifacio, Aguinaldo and other towering figures of the Philippine Revolution? Sadly, as I look around the corridors of heroes, there are still many unknown patriots that deserve the sidelights of history. One such obscure figure that needs illumination is— Domingo Franco. His name is not a byword in Philippine history. Nor was he even mentioned in our history textbooks except that fact he was one of “The Thirteen Martyrs of Bagumbayan.”

Who was Domingo Franco?

Scantily, history tells us that Domingo Franco was a native of Mambusao, Capiz, who later rose to become a highly successful leaf tobacco businessman in Manila. With the emergence of Masonic societies in the Philippines, Franco, together with his friend Numeriano Adriano joined the seminal Filipino Masonic Lodge Nilad in 1891. The great Mabini, on the other hand, joined the Lodge Balagtas. Franco took the symbolic name “Felipe Leal” (Loyal Philip) and was said to be the man in whom Rizal and Mabini reposed “the greatest confidence.” True to form, it was Franco who courageously received the first shipment of Noli that was sent by Rizal, clearing the “contrabands” in the Customs to avoid confiscation, and took care of distributing them.

The revived La Liga Filipina

After Rizal’s disengagement from La Solidaridad, he went on to challenge Mother Spain in the home country and launch La Liga Filipina—a front organization of the movement for reforms and unification of the Filipino nation. Upon Rizal’s return to Manila in June 1892, it was Franco, along with Timoteo Paez, who organized that historic meeting at the Onjunco house in Tondo where Rizal proposed the idea of La Liga. Three days later, however, Rizal was arrested, and the Liga was quickly dispersed.

The paragon reformist that he is, a year later, he and other patriots sought the revival of Liga; not only to carry on the goals as formulated by Rizal but also to raise funds for Soli. Soon, Franco was elected President of the revived La Liga Filipina and Mabini became Secretary of the Supreme Council. In charge of recruitment in the outskirt provinces was no less than the supreme revolutionist from Tondo, Andres Bonifacio. Altogether, they ran the gamut of the organization, from vice to virtue, from opposing views to winged innocence.
Rise of Katipunan—fall of La Liga

Rizal’s deportation to Dapitan, however, signaled the coming of revolutionary radicalism. For Bonifacio and the working class, the time for armed revolution had come. And so, although he was one of the active members of the revived Liga, in truth, Bonifacio balked the idea of having to use Liga as an instrument for raising funds to support reformist ends. To him, the Spanish masters could no longer be won by words. Franco and Adriano, of course, disagreed. And so, the organization splintered into two factions: the Cuerpo de Compromisarios, composed of moderate ilustrados, who still wanted to carry on openly seeking reforms without bloodshed, and the Katipunan, the plebian base of La Liga, which already believed that reforms were no longer possible except by secretly preparing for violent upheaval.

At this stage, we could say that Bonifacio was indeed an excellent organizer, but he just wasn’t good at keeping secrets, at least not for too long. A month later, the Katipunan was discovered, and many were arrested. One of them was Antonio Luna, the chemist who later became a famous revolutionary general. It was Luna who admitted to the authorities, wittingly or unwittingly, that Rizal’s La Liga was the parent organization of the Katipunan.

Path to martyrdom

Two weeks later, first to be arrested was Domingo Franco, a non-Katipunero. It was said that Franco was arrested in his office while playing with his six-year-old daughter, Conching. There, his elbows were tied up behind his back, shoved him into a horse-drawn rig and paraded him all the way to the dungeons of Fort Santiago. For several weeks, Franco endured all forms of torture while confined in a small cell. He was chained, flogged, and given the water cure. But Franco, the “Felipe Leal” of his compatriots, remained loyal to the end and never confessed to authorities the ‘truths’ they wanted to hear.

Just twelve days after Rizal’s execution, Domingo Franco, with twelve others, calmly faced the Spanish firing squad in Bagumbayan. Like Rizal, they too suffered humiliation at the hands of the colonizers even unto death. Their lifeless bodies were unceremoniously piled up to on a horse drawn cart and dumped them in an unmarked grave. To this day, the remains of the “thirteen martyrs” have not been found.

Franco’s legacy

Domingo Franco never thirsted for office, power, and the chance to make history. But without Franco and his paisanos, La Liga would have been almost dead at birth after the arrest of Rizal; it was them who resuscitated Rizal’s vision to work for reforms. Without the revival of La Liga, Bonifacio would not have had a front organization to disguise the work of the Katipunan; consequently, without the Katipunan there would not have been a revolution and no Philippine Republic to begin with.

Not much has been written about Franco, even historians of today have failed to highlight his contributions, and the travails he went through just to support the seemingly impotent propaganda movement at the turn of the century “One of the tasks of grateful generation,” as one Filipino statesman sought to remind us, “is to give due recognition to all our heroes, especially those who are unsung.” Thus, it is fitting after more than a hundred years to remember a genuine patriot like Domingo Franco— one of the unsung heroes of the Philippine Revolution.

Sources:

Celia Diaz-Laurel. My Lolo Domingo Franco. Philippines, 2011.

Agoncillo, Teodoro. The Revolt of the Masses: The Story of Bonifacio and the Katipunan. Quezon City: UP Press, 1956.

Photo credit: The Pinoy Pulse

Carlos P. Garcia in Retrospect

The nation was stunned in tears, with uncertainty afloat. On March 17, 1957, dubbed as the “blackest day in our history,” presidential plane christened as “Pinatubo,” bound for Manila, crashed in Mt. Manunggal just fifteen minutes after it took off in Cebu. President Ramon Magsaysay, the most likable of the towering political figures in the 50s, was killed and so was the entire complement in the plane save one. His vain death—which deserves a story of its own, for whatever it was purposed, was as widespread as his humble rise to power. Ultimately, his death had a profound impact on the masses not only because Magsaysay was their ‘savior,’ but he was also perceived to be one of their own.

But reality had to set in soon, no matter how dreadful. The next day, before a rapt and morose audience, a new president was sworn in to take over the reins of government for the remaining eight months. Against this background, the Herculean task fell squarely on the shoulders of Magsaysay’s subaltern— Vice President Carlos P. Garcia.

In the “Guy’s” shadow

Carlos Polistico Garcia was not a charming politician. That was the truth. Small, dark-skinned, curly-haired fellow, almost Moorish in appearance, Garcia lacked Magsaysay’s charm that had enthralled the hoi polloi to his side. Nor was he able to mesmerize the masses with bombastic oratory, create dramatic pauses and raised hubbubs. Though he always thought and spoke on his feet, Garcia’s poetic prowess was clearly overshadowed by Magsaysay’s magic. It was said that had Magsaysay lived to run for a second term, Garcia would have been replaced as his running mate with a better vote-getter candidate. Not that Garcia was unaware of these criticisms early on—quite the contrary. He found his supposed weaknesses to be his strength.

In a broader sense, it is not easy to classify Garcia. He had the mind of a chess grandmaster, eager to take challenges, grapple with facts through calculated moves, rather than a populist’s mesmerized by abstractions with their what ifs and wherefores. This was clearly demonstrated when Garcia, the seemingly uncharismatic candidate, confounded his opponents by winning his own presidential mandate in 1957 with apparent ease. All the same, if Garcia was ever anything, he was a nationalist.

Garcia’s politics

Born on November 4, 1896 in Talibon, Bohol, Carlos P. Garcia belonged to a middle-class family who valued education more than anything else. After high-school, he went on to pursue a preparatory law course in the prestigious Silliman University, and Philippine Law School where Garcia obtained his Bachelor of Laws degree. After placing first in the 1923 bar examinations, Garcia had a brief stint teaching law until politics caught up with him.

Elected representative of the third district of Bohol for six years, Garcia had gone the opposite path and became the provincial governor of Bohol for three successive terms. Then the turning point came when both Quezon and Osmeña, Nacionalista bigwigs at that time, drafted him to run for senator in 1941, and he won. His jubilation, however, was short-lived when the Japanese invaders arrived in the Philippines. Instead of collaborating with the enemy, Garcia went up the hills and fought the Japs as a leader of a guerilla force.

Garcia’s service in the trenches served him well when he resumed his political career after the war. While a senator, Garcia’s nationalistic fervor enabled him to function well as chairman of the Senate committee on foreign affairs advocating claims for reparation and war damages. He too was instrumental in opposing the “No money, no parity” policy that was being pushed by the Liberal Manuel Roxas. This was a brilliant move, and Garcia rapidly made himself one of the top honchos of the Nacionalista Party (NP). But the odds were stacked against him, at least momentarily.

After being elected three times to the senate, Garcia was tapped by NP as Magsaysay’s running mate for the 1953 presidential elections. Magsaysay was a true blue Liberal but jumped off to NP after disagreements with his erstwhile boss, President Quirino. Both won overwhelmingly. After Magsaysay’s death, Garcia completed his term and then won his own presidential term in the same year.
The nationalist president
Wafted by the winds of nationalism fanned by the likes of Recto and Laurel, Magsaysay was no match to Garcia’s fierce devotion to the ideals of being a true Nacionalista—“Country above all else.” For Garcia, the espousal of nationalism requires the convergence between words and actions; between theory and practice. In his own words, Garcia lamented so poignantly that, “A President must be deedless in words and wordless in deeds.”
The meaning was fairly simple: deeds must be louder than words and not otherwise. That was Garcia’s credo.

“Buy Filipino”

By the time Garcia became president, the specter of American colonialism was still very much in vogue in the country. But Garcia, an avid admirer of Quezon, would have none of it. More than his accomplishments in the realm of foreign affairs, Garcia’s name became synonymous with “Filipino First” policy, a nationalist policy that encouraged Filipinos to inculcate the much-needed national pride. In a word, Garcia’s economic nationalism gave preference to Filipinos over all other foreigners in the acquisition of land, capital and in the operation of business in the country.

Under the Garcia administration, almost all banks were in the hands of Filipinos; local industries began to flourish and landed estates exchanged hands. True to his ideals, Garcia espoused the policy of import controls by making sure that dollars were well used for economic needs of Filipino entrepreneur. As a result, by assisting new entrepreneurs to get dollar allocation, Filipino enterprises developed, which in turn led to the establishment of many Filipino-owned companies.
Of course, this did not sit well with foreign businessmen such as the Americans. They swear never to allow a nationalist like Garcia to win another election. He had to be stopped at all cost. Corruption charges then were hurled against Garcia, some even mocked him as a draconian fascist, but nothing came out of it. And so Garcia lost his re-election bid to Diosdado Macapagal, the Liberal populist candidate whom the Americans supported in the 1961 elections.

Carlos P. Garcia was tested by fate yet he faltered not. In fact, in so brief a time, his achievements as a “presidential caretaker” and later on as the president himself, became more significant than the bigger shoes he had to fill in. This month, we commemorate his death and celebrate his life – veneration duly accorded to a man who may not have saved a president from a plane crash, but who has saved the country from a similar downfall.

"Jabidah"

The year was 1968. President Marcos, a brilliant politician by all accounts, was nearing the end of his first term, and would surely run for reelection the next year. But there was a hitch. A young and ambitious senator, one of the rising stars of the opposition party was about to expose Marcos regime’s “secret military operation” to recover a lost territory, now unjustly occupied by Malaysia. “Tell your cousin Ninoy to stop spreading the rumor that the Philippines will invade Sabah,” President Marcos warned Senator Eva Estrada Kalaw as soon as news reached the Palace. Surprised with the remark, she meekly tried to defend him, but to no avail. “Tell him he is a congenital liar,” the president shot back.

Meanwhile, in the Senate that evening, the solons were having their usual debates when Senate President Gil Puyat banged the gavel for a recess and announced for them to assemble in his room. There, he apprised them of a national security matter: the possible sneak invasion of Sabah. “Shall we discuss it in private or bring it up on the floor?” he pushed. Probably unaware of the serious implications of the issue before them, all of the senators agreed: Ninoy shall take the Senate floor.

The following morning, the so-called “Operation Jabidah” crashed the headlines. “Open the ‘Bulletin’ and see if I’m a congenital liar,” Ninoy bragged to his prima over the phone. Obviously, the opposition Liberal Party (LP) lost no time in making political capital of the incident. LP leaders took turns on the Senate floor to lambast President Marcos and demand investigation of the massacre. Throughout the country, Muslim students took their indignation to the streets, crying out justice for the deaths of so many young Muslims in Corregidor. The demonstrations, led by then UP political science Professor Nur Misuari, went as far as Malacanang Palace and Congress chanting to the choruses of “Alahu Akbar!” urging Muslim youth to unite. Thus began that infamous episode in modern Philippine history dubbed as the Jabidah massacre.

A stab at diplomacy

After persistent diplomacy to take back Sabah from Malaysia in the early sixties, President Diosdado Macapagal finally forced the issue upon the international community. And so, under the auspices of the United Nations (UN), a referendum was held over Sabah. The locals, however, voted to join the Federation of Malaysia despite strong objections filed in the UN by Indonesia and the Philippines. It was an inconclusive election, to say the least. But as it was, the US government had spoken in favor of the outcome of the referendum, officially sealing the fate of the Philippine claim to Sabah.

Furious at leaders in Malaysia, the Philippines severed diplomatic ties with Malaysia, a hiatus that lasted until President Marcos re-established relations during his term. But President Marcos had a different agenda on the table. Unlike his predecessor, one of the notable facets in the President’s character was deep secrecy; he played his foreign policy cards close to his chest. As a result, by feigning peaceful intentions with Malaysia, President Marcos bid his time well in preparation for the grand adventure. Indeed, as they say, politics is drama, politics is theater.

Project Merdeka (Freedom)

It was against this background of general frustration that the covert operation codenamed “Operation Merdeka”—the recruitment and initial training phase—was hatched.

The original idea was to destabilize Sabah by sending as many Filipinos there so that when a referendum was held among the Sabahans, the majority would have the numbers to claim the province as part of Philippine territory. Since workers in Sabah were predominantly Filipinos with ties to the motherland or Moros, who paid homage to the Sultanate of Sulu, President Marcos believed that the locals would prefer sovereignty of the Philippines to that of Malaysia. From there, the Sultanate of Sulu, the rightful heir of the disputed land, would deliver the resource-rich territory to the Philippines.

To carry out his plans, President Marcos tapped the services of an air force major, a fighter pilot, by the name of Eduardo Martelino. A visionary in his own right, Martelino had written a book advocating the unification of Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia into a single state to be called “Maphilindo.” As it was, Martelino proposed to send a commando unit to Sabah for the purpose of fomenting unrest and starting a civil war. Once the fighting ensued, the Philippines would then come in on the pretext of protecting the interest of Filipinos living there.

Named after Martelino’s first Muslim wife, camp Sophia was set up as a secret training camp in Simunul, the rustic island-town of Tawi-Tawi, where the first Arab missionary Makhdum had built the first mosque in the 13th century. Martelino, alongside Lt Eduardo Batalla, trained close to 200 young Muslim men—Tausugs of Sulu and Sama of Tawi-Tawi. What lured the young men to Martelino’s invasion project was the promise of being part of an elite unit of the Armed Forces after four months of intensive training.

But sometime in February 1968, the Muslim recruits were informed that they had to undergo “further specialized training,” and that they would be transferred to Corregidor—noted to be Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s last stand during the Filipino-American resistance where he delivered his oft-quoted “I Shall Return” speech. From Simunul, the troops, numbering around 135 to 180, sailed for two days and one night on board a Philippine Navy vessel bound to Corregidor. This signaled the end of “Operation Merdeka” and the beginning of “Operation Jabidah.”

The Jabidah Massacre

Legend has it that the name “Jabidah” refers to a beautiful princess in Moro folklore. But like the pilgrim who spent the night with a beautiful queen who they thought was Nefertiti, the Muslim trainees too were in for a surprise. When morning came, and the veils were opened, the legend turned out to be a hideous woman of the night—a horror tale.

In the new island fortress, Martelino formed two commands that would separate the Tausugs from the Sama trainees. The “Sadlupan” command was composed of the Sama, and the Tausugs, on the other hand, belonged to the “Subangan” command. It appears, however, that the military officers despised the Tausugs because they were obstinate, always complaining at every turn, but they favor the Sama, gave them their allowances and would treat them fairly well. Thus, during their stay on the island, the Sama recruits were merely confined to one area while the Tausugs were kept elsewhere under rigid schedule. And so, the Jabidah planners decided that the Tausugs would be the first wave of Muslim commandos to invade Sabah. At this point, the recruits were informed what their true mission was. All along they thought that they would only be part of a peace-keeping force to be assigned in the Muslim areas. When they were told that their mission was to infiltrate Sabah and stir up an uprising there, right off, the Tausugs trainees got angry. They were sprawled all over, numb and dispirited at the revelation. The situation was complicated further by the non-payment of the P50 monthly allowance, a promise made by their superiors in Simunul.

Then something happened. Some immediately wanted to leave Corregidor and be returned home. When the Jabidah progenitors prevented them from leaving, the Tausugs mutinied. For some reason, they had to be disarmed— they had to be silenced.

The story is oft-told that one night, the rebellious trainees were taken out of the barracks in groups of twelve. At a nearby remote airstrip, they were instructed to proceed farther on while their escorts, armed with guns, stayed behind. When asked by one of the survivors, Jibin Arula, where they were supposed to go, the answer he got was a volley of shots. Arula dropped to the ground, rolled over the edge of a cliff at the far end of the airstrip and threw himself to the sea. Although shot in the knee, Arula managed to stay afloat for many hours, feigning death. He swam across several miles of Manila Bay, and the next day, was rescued by a Cavite fisherman who brought him to Governor Delfin Montano.

From there, the garrulous opposition Senator Ninoy Aquino Jr., a journalist by profession, picked up the story. After hearing Jibin Arula’s story, he hurriedly called for an urgent press conference. From the moment Ninoy opened his mouth, the Muslim leaders who flanked the press conference listened gape-mouthed as he unveiled the massacre that allegedly happened in Corregidor. It was definitely one of the biggest snares of Marcos’ reign and the itch, they say, that started it all.

Decades later, amidst the killing of the 44 Fallen SAF heroes, the assertion of the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) and the desire to alienate Mindanao and make it a separate entity from the Philippines, and the seemingly unending war between Muslims and Christians, allude to the Jabidah massacre is almost impossible. When however, the air clears and dust has settled, the intention that led to Jabidah, not to its failed mission, nor the itch that ignited the Muslim-Christian rift, remains valid: Sabah is ours. And Marcos’ operation to assert our right over it, no matter how it failed, is definitely not a hoax.

Photo credit: Xiao Chua

A Past Denied 2

The seminal boil of resistance was lanced in the “Battle of Mactan” and with it came the moral of the story that no matter what the odds, freedom is always worth fighting for.

Legend has it that Lapu-Lapu and his men simply fought with arrows and bamboo spears; but they fought with great heroism. Their sense of nationalistic pride, love for freedom, had put the foreign invaders to rout. Thus, the battle ended with the Spaniards fleeing back to their boats, leaving their beloved captain — their “light, mirror, and comfort”— to die on the rocky shore.

This resistance was to be reaffirmed many times over when the Spaniards returned in force to colonize the archipelago, especially in Muslim fiefdoms.

Prelude to colonization

As it was, Filipinos of 1521 were not yet Filipinos but indios, Moors or heathens. When the Spanish fleet, led by the heavily bearded Portuguese dreamer and explorer Ferdinand Magellan, reached Samar (and later Cebu), the Philippines then was just an archipelagic cluster of tribes. The notion of state, or region, or common worship or civilization was alien to the natives. Armed to the teeth, each wary of the other, the natives were seemingly preoccupied with sailing the short seas for livelihood, and also to fight.

The excellent chronicler Antonio Pigafetta, who accompanied Ferdinand Magellan’s 1521 expedition in Las Yslas Filipinas, describes the islanders (Samarenos) thusly:

“They have holes in their ears so large that they can pass their arms through them. Those people are caphri, that is to say heathen. They go naked, with a cloth woven from the bark of a tree about their privies, except some of the chiefs who wear the cotton cloth embroidered with silk at the ends by means of a needle. They are dark, fat and painted. They anoint themselves with coconut and beneseed oil for protection against the sun and wind. They have very black hair that falls to the waist, and use daggers, knives and spears ornamented with gold, large shields, fascines, javelins and fishing nets that resemble rizali and their boat are like ours.”

Like politicians of today, the conquistadors too encouraged ignorance. With a country splintered into 7000 islands, the Spaniards must have thought that they could easily rule and exploit the entire archipelago in no time. To make sure that they could lay down their colonial intentions smoothly, the Spaniards saw to it that any kind of unity among the natives was to be avoided at all cost. Necessarily, any effort at coming together was to be discouraged.

In search of paradise

After Magellan’s fateful expedition, the strident wind of colonization began to sweep the country. It was certain that the invaders would return, but the natives were clueless what their real intentions were. And so the Spaniards were back but with a different twist.

Under the common of Miguel Lopez de Legaspi, the Spanish fleet landed in Cebu around 1564. The Spaniards, despite being outnumbered, wasted no time to begin the process of colonization. Using the banner of Catholicism as a tool for subjugation, the colonizers launched a massive military campaign. Worse atrocities were committed to these malleable natives as part of the Spanish Crown’s colonial efforts. The burning of houses, the wholesale looting, and the desecration of the dead in search of gold, were methods used by the Spaniards, not only to force submission from the natives, but also as means to survive in a desolated island. Some of the natives fled, leaving their villages in ruins while others stood their ground only to surrender their freedoms out of fear later. With the disappearance of the old barangays, the Spaniards formed the first Hispanic settlements in Cebu. For three years or so, the Spaniards maintained a main base there while desperately awaiting reinforcements from Spain.

As days dragged into months, and months into years, the Spaniards grew restive, quiescent in a way. With nothing left to plunder and to support them, the restless invaders decided to jettison Cebu. Soon they figured a nearby island that was reported to have abundant food supplies, mainly rice. And so off they sailed to Panay.

Like the natives of Cebu, the Pintados of Panay fiercely resisted the conquistadors, but the colonizers once again prevailed by applying the same level of violence towards the people. Wherever the Spaniards went, villages were looted and burned to ashes. For even with a small military contingent, some of these jingoistic Spanish soldiers were in fact veterans of the Spanish wars. Obviously, these colonial incursions had certainly spurred a “culture shock” among the local population. For the first time, natives would face Castilians as aggressors, puissant and armed, which completely kept them off guard even before the battle began.

Although only a few barangays were virtually conquered, half of Panay’s population perished during these incursions.
The northward expansion

After establishing a new base in Panay, another island far north lured them. This time, the Spanish conquistadors vowed to conquer Manila, a place reported to have large settlements of Bornean Muslims. Quickly, the conquistadors consolidated its forces by putting up a coalition of Visayan allies, mostly fighting men from Cebu and Panay. Recruitment of mercenary soldiers was easy. Spaniards knew for a fact that Visayans were hostile to Manilans because they thought of them as incorrigible barbarians— “Muslims.” This was to have a profound impact on the Christian-Muslim relationship in the future.

With the aid of 1,500 Visayan auxiliaries, the small band of Spaniards decided to move to Manila. The year was 1570.

The northward expansion was, in fact, a vital strategy to complete the process of “possession” and “conquest.” Indeed, if Manila could be taken over by Spaniards, the next logical step would be the “conquest” of Luzon and much of the archipelago. Owing to Manila’s large settlements, soon to follow was the establishment of a unique Spanish colonial institution— the encomienda; a complex political structure employed by the regime to exact tributes and labor services from the indios.

Part III will tackle the beginning of the Moro Wars; the Spaniards versus the Borneans and beyond.

Sources:

O.D. Corpus, The Roots of the Filipino Nation, Vol. I, Quezon City: UP Press, 2010

Abraham “Abet” Iribani, Give Peace A Chance: The Story of the GRP-MNLF Peace Talks, Magbasa Kita Foundation, 2006

Teodoro C. Benigno, “A Dip into the Deep Past,” Here’s the Score, Philippines Today Inc., 1990